


After the Funeral

by resqueln



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drunk liaison, M/M, Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resqueln/pseuds/resqueln
Summary: It’s a day made for funerals.Set at the end of Season 2.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51





	After the Funeral

It’s a day made for funerals. Vertical sheets of rain fall on the assembled mourners in the graveyard, huddled like crows under their umbrellas. Not one of them is a copper except for Greg. He accidentally catches John Watson’s eye as the church empties out and gets a cold nod. Guilt twists in Greg’s chest.

After the service the graveyard starts to empty quickly, a steady stream of people flowing away along the paths to the car park. Greg lingers for a moment, looking at the black marble headstone, feeling as if he should say something. He doesn’t know whether to apologise or curse the bastard.

“For fuck’s sake, Sherlock,” he settles on, speaking it to the empty air. In his mind’s eye he can almost imagine Sherlock’s contemptuous snort, eyes rolling.

He walks back alone across the graveyard, water seeping into his dress shoes. The car park is all but empty when he gets there. 

_Oh for…_

His car has a flat tyre. Fumbling in his pocket he pulls his phone free only to find it unresponsive, the battery dead. “Bloody hell,” he mutters to himself.

The splash of a car’s wheels through puddles makes him turn just as a black sedan with blacked out windows pulls up alongside him. The door opens, Mycroft Holmes of all people holding it open in invitation.

“Can I offer you a lift, Inspector?” Mycroft asks. Greg hesitates a moment, taken aback. With a lift of his brow Mycroft adds, “My people will take care of your car.”

Greg’s fingers are numb with cold, his feet are wet and he’s stranded – there’s no real question. “Yes, please,” he says gratefully and ducks into the Sedan.

Inside the car is warm. They sit in silence as the driver winds the car through the country lanes, the hedgerows and rolling fields of Sussex zipping past. Across the car from Greg, Mycroft sits like a sentinel, his face turned toward the world passing outside. 

“Thanks for this,” Greg says eventually, feeling the need to break the suffocating silence.

Turning from the window, Mycroft’s smile is small and perfunctory, more of a twist of his lips. “It is the least I can do,” Mycroft says. 

The words come bubbling up out of Greg, like a confession. “Even after I tried to arrest him?” Immediately he curses himself internally, embarrassed and expecting to be cut down by typical Holmes’ derision. Instead, across the confines of the car, Mycroft studies him. 

“You were doing your job,” Mycroft says solemnly, as if he believes it. Something eases a little in Greg’s chest. “We were all doing our jobs,” Mycroft adds, gaze turning internal. He looks tired in the grey light, hard lines on his face.

In fact Mycroft looks bloody awful and for a moment Greg wonders if the poor bloke has anyone to talk to. Not that it’s any of Greg’s business. He makes himself look away and loses himself in the view out of the window. The place they are driving through is rural and quaint. In the rain it looks bleak and isolated.

“When Sherlock was younger he wanted to be a pirate,” Mycroft says suddenly, completely out of the blue.

When Greg turns to look, Mycroft is watching him expectantly. 

“You’re joking,” Greg says and risks a faint smile.

“He found a book on Blackbeard in the library and then spent several days attempting to establish a family connection between Edward Teach and himself,” Mycroft says. The memory is obviously a fond one, judging by the way Mycroft's mouth quirks at one corner.

“Did he?” Greg asks. 

“I regret that we are unrelated,” Mycroft says wryly.

Greg finds himself huffing out a laugh. “Yeah? Too bad.”

They fall silent again, each lost in their own thoughts. Shortly, the edges of London start to pass them by – houses and industrial estates mixed in with corner shops and parks. They can’t be more than ten minutes away from Greg’s flat when Mycroft speaks again. 

“I find myself somewhat reluctant to be without company, Inspector. Would you care to join me for a drink?” 

He finds himself automatically hesitating, floored by the question. Mycroft Holmes is a voice on the other end of the phone issuing orders, a face Greg glimpses sometimes at work or at crime scenes, cold and impersonal. Except right now the man looks almost human – tired and strained around the edges. He watches Greg silently, waiting for a decision.

What the hell. Not like there’s anything waiting back at his flat except a two day old takeaway, a letter summoning him to a disciplinary meeting, and more memories than Greg cares to be alone with at the moment.

“Sure, why not. I could use a drink myself,” Greg says.

Mycroft doesn't smile exactly, but there's satisfaction in the way he inclines his head in acknowledgement. He raps on the glass, and that’s apparently all the direction the driver needs. Smoothly, the car changes lanes. They take the next right and soon enough are crossing the river. Before Greg knows it, they’re rolling to a stop outside a townhouse in Kensington. 

“If you would not mind, Inspector, I fear we must make use of my home,” Mycroft says.

"Sure," Greg agrees, wondering what the hell he's let himself in for.

He follows Mycroft up the front steps and through the huge front door. The hallway is the size of Greg’s apartment. 

“Please make yourself comfortable,” Mycroft says as he disappears silently through a doorway. 

The floors are polished stone and yet the acoustics dampen each footstep. Greg shirks off his coat and hangs it on the coatrack. His worn department store coat sticks out like a sore thumb next to Mycroft’s expensive looking bespoke woollen overcoat. He shakes his head before following. Mycroft has thrown his suit jacket over the back of a chair, shirtsleeves already rolled up as he opens a cabinet door. He catches Greg spotting it.

“A bad habit,” he says with a self-deprecating smile. “My assistant, Anthea, has been known to torture men for less.”

“She sounds like my ex-wife.”

Mycroft places a tumbler down on the kitchen surface.

“What can I get you, Inspector?”

“Scotch?” he asks hopefully.

Mycroft pours them both a tumbler full of amber liquid. Greg raises his own in offering. 

“To Sherlock,” Greg says and Mycroft offers a small, polite, pained smile.

“As you say. To Sherlock,” Mycroft says and taps Greg’s glass with his own.

They both drink. It’s smooth as velvet and Greg hums appreciatively, taking another gulp. Silence falls between them again and Greg wonders what the hell he's doing here, in Sherlock's brother's house, drinking scotch that probably cost more than his yearly salary. 

Mycroft is considering his own drink, thoughts obviously turned inwards and Greg tries to think of something to say, anything to break the silence. Mycroft saves him the trouble.  
“I wanted to thank you," Mycroft says as he refills both glasses.

Greg blinks. "Huh?"

He meets Mycroft's eyes and can't quite read the expression there. 

"You have been a valuable ally to my brother, even when at times it has been compromising to yourself," Mycroft explains.

"He's a friend," Greg says, feeling defensive for no reason he can put his finger on. It takes him a moment to catch his mistake and then his chest feels heavy all over again. "He was a friend," he corrects himself.

"Indeed," is all Mycroft says, brooding almost and Greg doesn't think it's entirely to do with his slip, though he can't for the life of him work out what else it would be about.

“Though I won’t deny that at times he was a monumental pain in my arse,” Greg adds, trying to lighten the mood.

“I believe we have that in common, Inspector,” Mycroft says dryly.

Greg is startled into a chuckle and Mycroft glances at him sharply. Feeling suddenly awkward, Greg says the first thing that comes into his head. "Let’s get drunk," he suggests and then immediately wishes the words back when Mycroft’s expression shifts to something colder, more speculative. 

For a horrible moment Greg remembers that he’s talking to his _boss_ for all sakes and purposes, the man who runs the British government for chrissakes – and he’s just suggested that they get pissed. 

Well, he can’t take the words back now. In for a penny, in for a pound. Steeling himself for what’s bound to be a sneering rejection, he pushes on.

“I don’t know about you, but it’s been a bloody awful year and all I want to do right now is get completely and utterly shit faced,” Greg says, throwing it all in. Mycroft raises an eyebrow.  
For a breathless moment there’s no other reaction, and then something shifts, a flicker of something on Mycroft’s face that Greg hasn’t a hope of deciphering. Mycroft smiles humorlessly.

“I believe you are right, Inspector,” he says, much to Greg’s surprise. . “It has been a very long year, and we should get very, very drunk.”

“Well for a start, if we’re having a drink you had best call me Greg,” Greg says with an awkward half-smile.

“Certainly, Gregory.” 

Gregory? Bloody hell. No one’s called him that since primary school. He lets it go.

Mycroft, it turns out, can drink like the most hardened of pub regulars. Greg’s reluctantly impressed.

“An essential skill when one works in the civil service,” Mycroft says in the Sahara-dry tone that Greg is starting to realise means that Mycroft is joking.  
Greg snorts appreciatively. 

“Sherlock wanted to be a pirate. What about you? What did you want to be?” he asks.

“A cowboy,” Mycroft replies after only a brief hesitation.

It could be the truth or not, either way, even without the whiskey in his system he’d never be able to tell. 

“And yourself?” Mycroft asks politely, though there’s a spark of genuine curiosity in his eyes that has Greg answering truthfully.

“Always wanted to be a cop.”

“Ah. It was your calling,” Mycroft says seriously with a little flourish of his hand that has Greg hiding a smirk unsteadily behind his glass. Obviously he’s not the only one who has had a bit too much. He briefly thinks about what Sherlock must have been like as a kid. Probably a nightmare.

“God, Sherlock must have been a terror,” he says.

Mycroft’s smile is pained.

“You miss him,” Greg says and then mentally kicks himself. Of course Mycroft bloody misses him.

“More than I thought I would,” Mycroft says and then frowns. Greg wonders if he meant to give that much away. 

“My father died when I was a teenager,” Greg offers. Distracted from his thoughts, Mycroft looks at him curiously.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he says. 

“Still miss him some days, even now,” Greg says with a shrug, rolling his tumbler in his hands. When he glances back up Mycroft is watching him. 

“That is only to be expected,” Mycroft says.

"Yeah, well," Greg says, embarrassed all of a sudden. "That's life, isn't it?" he says, wincing internally at the inanity of that statement. Sherlock would have said something cutting. Mycroft just smiles wryly. 

"Indeed," Mycroft says and then knocks back half his measure in one go.

His fingers are long and thin, pale against the fancy outsides of the crystal-cut glass in his hand. Greg blinks and then follows the other man’s lead and downs his own drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand afterwards. Mycroft is watching him intently. Greg stares at him incomprehendingly as Mycroft leans forward and kisses him once, before withdrawing and waiting silently, expression inscrutable. 

“I should go –“ Greg says but he doesn’t move.

Instead he leans forward and recaptures Mycroft’s lips, pressing forward. Mycroft is warm and very much alive under his hands and suddenly Greg is really, really on board with this plan.  
He hasn’t kissed a bloke in a long time, or actually done anything with a bloke in a long time. Twenty years of heterosexual monogamy (on his part anyway) has left him out of practice. Mycroft doesn’t seem to mind his lack of finesse, judging by the way his clever hands make quick work of Greg’s shirt buttons. 

Mycroft pulls away and Greg makes an impatient noise he knows he’ll feel embarrassed about later.

“Not here,” Mycroft says.

His heart is pounding as he follows Mycroft up the ornate staircase. He doesn’t do this. He’s never done this, this is a scene from someone else’s life. But apparently tonight he is doing this; he meets Mycroft at the threshold, lets Mycroft touch his waist and kiss him, kisses Mycroft in return as he pulls Greg backwards into the dark bedroom beyond. 

*

“That was good, right?” Greg asks.

“I concur. That was most enjoyable,” Mycroft says.

He’s stretched out next to Greg, head resting on his arms. In the dim light his skin is so pale it seems to glow. He looks like a painting almost, one of those Italian ones Greg remembers from that time his ex-wife dragged him round the Tate. Mycroft shifts and Greg looks back up guiltily – caught. From the slightly amused look on his face, Mycroft isn’t bothered. A wave of exhaustion hits him and 

Greg closes his eyes, just to rest them. The next thing he knows, someone is calling his name. “Gregory,” Mycroft says softly.

Greg blinks blearily, sleep falling away with a jolt. Mycroft is fully dressed, moving around the room, and the beginning of dawn is lightening the world behind the curtains. The light stabs into Greg’s eyes and he groans as his hangover hits him.

“Yeah?” he asks, scrubbing at his face.

“There are things that I must do,” Mycroft says apologetically.

“You’re kicking me out?” Greg asks, still feeling bleary. Christ, his head.

Mycroft inclines his head. “I have a meeting.” The clock reads 5:30am. Greg winces sympathetically.

“Yes of course, let me get dressed –“

Mycroft doesn’t reply, but instead leaves the room. His clothes have been neatly folded and placed on a chair – Mycroft’s doing, he hopes. He jerks his suit trousers on and fumbles with the buttons, fingers clumsy on the fastenings. He manages to get his head together a bit as he dresses, the odd red mark he finds on his skin making him smile. Last night had been good. It’s been a while since Greg felt a connection with someone, and for it to be Mycroft Holmes of all people... He touches his lips, feeling them tingle as he smiles.

He finds Mycroft downstairs.

“So listen,” he says as he walks into the kitchen. “Do you fancy getting a drink sometime –“ he stops dead as he catches sight of Mycroft’s grimace, tea cup paused half way to his mouth. All his half-formed ideas drain away. They’re only standing six feet apart all told, but the distance between them is suddenly vast. What the hell had Greg been thinking, asking that? As if Mycroft was going to want to come down the pub with him. As if they had anything in common. Fuck.

Before Greg can make excuses and return them to an even keel, Mycroft lowers his tea cup, placing it with exacting precision on its saucer.

“A date?” Mycroft asks, eyebrows raised, something a lot like distaste on his face. “What a – novel idea,” he says and now there’s a hint of sneer in his voice that puts Greg’s back right up.

“Right. My mistake,” he says bluntly, biting back a flood of embarrassment.

“Indeed,” Mycroft says, cold and condescending and this, this is the guy that Greg knows from crime scenes, from the other end of the phone. 

Right. Well. Why the hell he agreed to come here in the first place, Greg has no idea. He’s suddenly acutely aware of his every bruise and ache in his body. God, what a bloody stupid fool he’s been. 

Mycroft has returned his attention to the morning’s papers.

“Right, well. I’ll be off then,” Greg says, angry and disconsolate. He turns to leave without waiting for an answer and gets as far as the door.

“Thank you for a most enjoyable evening, Inspector,” Mycroft says politely, looking up from the _Financial Times_. 

Greg shakes his head wonderingly. “You’re a piece of work, Mycroft.”

Mycroft’s smile is barely there and sharp as a knife. “As you say,” he says.

Mycroft’s assistant is waiting for him in the hallway, politely standing outside the kitchen door and Greg wonders if she heard the whole bloody thing. .

“Your car has been delivered safely to your apartment building, Inspector. If you would care for a lift home, I can summon Mr Holmes’ driver.”

Absolutely no bloody way. “No thanks, I’ll walk,” he says, shaking with anger, and pushes past her. She steps aside smoothly, unphased.

“Goodbye, Inspector,” she says and Greg has to bite back a curt _fuck off_. 

And then the door is shut and he’s out in the morning air, the grey pavements still slick from the previous night’s rain. London is almost quiet, the early hour traffic still only a low thrum in the background. He stands there and just breathes, the anger and humiliation burning in his veins cooling a little with each breath.

Sherlock is still gone and the city feels odd, broken open and empty in the pale light of the new day. Somewhere out there John Watson is grieving the loss of his best friend. Later today, Greg will go to the Yard and if he comes out with his job intact he’ll be lucky. 

He sets off for home. Out of the corner of his eye he sees movement in one of the old fashioned windows as he passes. Greg doesn’t bother to turn and check.

_Epilogue_

Mycroft hears voices in the hall, followed in due course by the heavy slam of the front door closing. He stands at the edge of the window, drawing aside the curtain a few millimetres, a small gap through which he can see but not be seen. A few moments later Gregory Lestrade passes on the street below, jaw still set with anger. 

It hadn’t been hard to orchestrate an evening that had ended with Lestrade in his bed. Rarely did Mycroft feel the need to indulge such appetites, but on occasion he feels compelled to seek out company. On those occasions, he prefers to seek out those few men known to him who are equally as unsentimental in these matters as himself, so as to avoid any unnecessary entanglements or expose himself to unwanted emotional attachments. 

Lestrade had been something far more dangerous – a whim, a moment of weakness. Weakness that could not be allowed to continue. He had been worryingly reluctant to put the Inspector straight; which had only confirmed to his mind that it was the most logical course of action. It's unfortunate that necessity had made it so… unpleasant.

Mycroft’s breakfast has been completed early. He makes a minor mental alteration to his morning’s plans and then picks up the phone. 

“Put me through to Superintendent Singh,” he orders. 

After the conversation is complete he replaces the receiver. Detective Inspector Lestrade is unlikely to make the connection between Mycroft and his continued employment, saving them both from the burden of the Inspector's gratitude, and any likely confusion on the Inspector’s part about Mycroft’s own motives. Mycroft straightens out each of his shirt cuffs carefully, reseats himself and takes a precise sip of his tea. 

He has a meeting in twenty minutes. By his own calculations he can afford three minutes out of his daily schedule to contemplate the morning’s events thus far with something approaching regret.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this after the season finale of Sherlock Season 2 had aired for the first time. Yes, I really do write that slowly. :-/
> 
> This was posted without beta, all errors are very much mine. Constructive criticism welcome.


End file.
